Once a year the stress hits … what kind of party will you throw for your kid’s birthday? But no need to stress this year - a kids’ cooking party combines all of the ingredients for a fun-filled, memorable birthday. Mix creative invitations with restaurant décor, blend in yummy kid-made food, add a generous helping of fun activities topped with crazy kids, and you have the recipe for the best-ever kids’ cooking party sure to please any age.

Creative Invitations

Due to the hands-on nature of a cooking party, you’ll want to limit the number of guests to the size of your kitchen. Six kids typically fit comfortably in the average kitchen. On your invitation, advise parents to call you about any possible food allergies. Some ideas for innovative invitations include:

Recipe cards. Purchase a pack of recipe cards and simply list the specific information like a recipe. For example, Birthday Fun from the kitchen of (Child’s Name). Mix 6 great kids, 1 cup of imagination, a generous portion of laughter, etc. You can also find free recipe-card templates online to print out at microsoft.com or recipecards.net.

Design a small menu. Use your child’s name in the restaurant title (Bailey’s Bashin’ Bistro, Corey’s Culinary Cafe, Fran’s Fine Dining, Ellen’s Eatery, etc.) and include the party information set up in courses like a menu. You can simply design this out of construction paper or cardstock, or get fancy on your computer. Add a food or restaurant logo from Microsoft.com clipart.

Your own little chef. Take a picture of the birthday child dressed as a chef and adhere it to the invitation.

Use cookie cutters or mini rolling pins. These work best when handing out, rather than mailing, invitations, but kids will get excited for the event when they see this party paraphernalia. You can attach recipe card invitations described above, or simply attach a simple cardstock with the details and let the cute rolling pin generate all those “yes” RSVPs.

Restaurant Décor and Ambiance

Kids love to pretend, and restaurant-style decor only adds to the fun. It may also encourage them to use better manners at the table! Set up your “restaurant” with the following:

Card tables with red/white or black/white tablecloths.

Flowers and/or candlelight add ambiance for older kids who won’t play with the fire. Candles that are somewhat enclosed may be less tempting.

Preset table settings with fancy folded napkins, silverware, bread plates, etc. present a more formal décor. (See the napkin-folding activity and table-setting relay in the Don’t Forget the Fun section of this article.)

Colorful menus outlining the food and activities to be experienced at the party.

Be sure to have music. Classical, Italian or Mexican music offer nice background sounds for a restaurant atmosphere.

Menu Considerations

The most common menu item at kids’ cooking parties seems to be pizza, primarily due to the fact that kids can personalize them – and they enjoy eating them. Almost anything that can be created individually with a variety of ingredients – such as quesadillas or tacos, pastas (with varying types of noodles, sauces and cheese for topping), wraps, topped French Fries, and topped hotdogs work well. If you have kids that will eat them, soups – such as vegetable soup – or casseroles make healthy menu items with everyone prepping and adding different ingredients. Rather than create one large birthday cake, consider smaller single round cakes that will serve several children. You can even let each child bake and decorate his own cake, then cut them so every child gets to taste each one. You can still put candles in the birthday child’s cake portions.

Don’t Forget the Fun!

Cooking and creating food provides plenty of activity at first, but the kids need to be occupied while pizzas and cakes bake. For other chef-related activities, try one or more of these:

Make personal placemats. Using 11 x 14 cardstock, let the kids decorate with stickers and markers. They can also create a collage from magazine pictures of food, restaurants and such.

Invite a real chef. A “guest visit” can be fun, especially someone entertaining who can teach them to do something in particular, such as throwing pizzas or decorating a cake.

Decorate a recipe book. Using journals or small photo albums found at dollar stores, let the kids decorate them with stickers and markers. Or you can take and print out a digital photo of each child in chef’s attire and adhere it to the cover.

Set up a taste testing. Line up a series of flavors for kids to sample and identify while blindfolded. Include sweet (honey, syrup), sour (diced pickle), and spicy (mustard) flavors.

Decorate aprons. You can pick up kids’ aprons rather inexpensively by the dozen at orientaltrading.com. Set out some fabric paints and let the kids have fun.

Make a chef’s hat. See familyfun.com for simple instructions or purchase paper hats from growingcooks.com to decorate and personalize.

Tour a local restaurant kitchen. Plan ahead and also ask about a small tasting activity. Italian restaurants offer plenty of kid-pleasing tastes.

Teach napkin folding. Kids love to do adult jobs! Check out napkinfoldingguide.com for a multitude of ideas for napkin swans, fans, towers and more.

“Name that Tool” game. ­Lay out a table full of cooking utensils and see which child can correctly name them. You can also take the opportunity to briefly discuss the use of each tool. This is an excellent activity for a visiting chef to handle.

Plan a scavenger hunt. Hide various kitchen objects and split the kids into two or three teams to find them. Put the list of objects on recipe cards or old menus.

Play a table-setting relay. This fun game actually teaches a life skill! Demonstrate how to properly set a table. Divide the kids into two teams with each team working on half of the place settings. One person on each team handles part of the table setting (silverware, napkin, plate, glass, etc.). The winning team not only must finish first, but have the table properly set. This activity works well right before sitting down to eat.

Party Favors

Kids love to take home party favors as sweet reminders of a great day. With a kids’ cooking party, activity items combined with cooking gear create natural favors such as:

Aprons

Chef’s hats

Recipe books

Oven mitts

Plastic measuring cups filled with candies

Mini rolling pins and other cooking tools, often found in cooking specialty stores

Framed photo of the child with his cooking creation

Finding Supplies and Favors

Two excellent websites that focus exclusively on kids’ cooking packages and supplies are: littlecooks.com, selling party favors and party packages that make your planning even easier, and growingcooks.com which is an excellent source for chef hats (paper and cloth), personalized aprons, kid-sized oven mitts, party kits, chef crayons and even toddler-sized chef attire.

Timing/Scheduling

With this type of party, it’s essential to have a schedule of events so the food preparation begins early and playing games occurs during cooking or baking time. As well, you don’t want the food to come out too late, or the kids will be starving. A brief period, with a game or two between the meal and the cake, provides more time for activities and makes the cake-eating a special event.

Creative invitations, a magical menu, inspired décor and imaginative activities blend together to result in a memorable birthday party. Using this recipe for a kids’ cooking party may make you mom of the year. The most challenging part will be how to follow up on all of the fun, food and excitement next year!

Are You A Good Mom?Being a good mom means more than baking cookies and joining the PTA. An effective mother does things like structure meaningful family activities that help kids learn while having fun. She watches over her offspring, providing guidance, encouragement, and discipline. On the other hand, with a busy schedule and not enough "Me" time, babysitters and bowling can start to take center stage. Hey mom, find out if you've got the parenting thing down by taking the quiz.